


Had me fast, let me na gang (if you do love me leel)

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: Background Jonathan/Arabella, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Emma's ramblings have turned to Tam Lin. Arabella knows the ballad well enough to know what actions she must take.





	Had me fast, let me na gang (if you do love me leel)

Emma babbles in fairytales, Segundus has said. Occasionally on her visits Arabella understands a little. Today she recognizes more than usual.

“But had I kend, Tam Lin, she said, what now this night I see…”

It doesn’t take a scholar like Segundus to recognize the ballad of Tam Lin, barely changed from the original. And Arabella, a magician’s wife, knows it well by now. She and Jonathan have studied it time and time again, along with other folk sources, scrounging for accurate details of the world Norrell hides in his forbidden books.

Segundus has a theory Emma is cursed, possessed by the fae. Arabella has never believed it. But Tam Lin’s story is a grim one, a tale of a tithe paid in blood, and Hallowe’en is soon. Jonathan is away at war—she cannot ask his advice. In his absence, she is the head of the house. The head of the house of the second magician in England. If there are fae about, she cannot in honor let them have their way.

Nor could she ever allow them to have their way with her precious friend.

She studies the ballad carefully. On the night of Hallowe’en, she goes down to the most formidable crossroads in the area, rumored to be cursed. The one up on a hill, with a pond close by its side. She waits. 

* * *

 

The riders come at midnight. They are a sight. Arabella watches them come—the hill provides a view—more than a hundred on horseback, men and women both. Some are in masks. All are in finery. Their horses are dark, brown and black and gray, but there is one white horse among them, and on it rides a familiar figure.

Arabella waits, hiding behind a tree. On the first black horse is a lord with thistledown hair, and she lets him pass, shivering in half-recognition. On the first brown horse is a lady whose cloak seems to be made of screaming mouths; she lets the lady pass as well. But when she sees the milk-white horse, she runs up and out, and she leaps, and she grabs the lady there by the waist and tumbles her down to the earth. Emma’s hair is loose, and it tangles in the dirt and around Arabella’s fingers. Arabella’s nose is pressed to her shoulder, and she smells less like sickness and more like ivy.

The horses all halt.

“Who disturbs our festivities?”

“I do,” Arabella says. “I claim this woman; she will not be your tithe.”

“That woman belongs to me,” says the gentleman with thistledown hair, “you may not have her.”

“Maybe I may not, but I will. You will not tear her from me.”

The gentleman roars in high-pitched rage, and in Arabella’s arms, Emma begins to change forms.

She grows and she grows, and she become heavy. Arabella turns to let her weight rest on the ground. Her gown turns to furry skin, and her legs grow long with pointed claws, and her face warps into that of a lion. Arabella clutches her, and finds she does not bite, but merely paws frantically at the earth.

“I claim Emma Pole,” she cries, “even as a lion.”

The gentleman claps, and Emma changes again. She slims into a pole, a hunk of smooth metal, but not pleasant to the touch. She burns Arabella’s hands—Arabella sees the fabric of her sleeves blackening—still Arabella holds her. “She may burn me, but I will have her.”

In Arabella’s hands, though still hot, the metal turned into wood, a burning log. Then Arabella knows it is time. She throws Emma straight into the pond, and steam rises from it, hissing.

The riders all stare at the pond. But the gentleman stares at Arabella. His face is red with rage.

Arabella raises her eyebrows. Rage, however incandescent, has never impressed her much.

And slowly Emma emerges from the pond. Her hair is wet and tangled, and her body is naked, but she goes to stand by Arabella and she stretches out her arms and finally returns her embrace. The pond water will ruin Arabella’s dress, but then, the sleeves were ruined already.

“Have her then, and be damned,” the gentleman says. “Such is our rule. But had I known, Lady Pole, you would leave me like this, I would have put out your eyes and replaced them with chestnuts.”

The company wheels away with a gallop of hooves. Arabella holds Emma, and holds her, and holds her.

* * *

 

Emma is no longer bound to silence or babble. She tells Arabella the story plainly. It is a frightening one.

“If he wanted you so badly, for a new face in his hall,” Arabella asks, “why would he sacrifice you now?” Not that she disbelieves any of it.

Emma looks at the floor. “He thought I would love him as all his court did. But my affections lay elsewhere.”

“Did they?” Arabella asks.

Emma kisses her.

There is a wildness to her kiss, to its eagerness. Perhaps she expects to be rejected. If so, Arabella disappoints her. She did not know her friend loved her thus—she rarely understands Emma’s emotions—but she cannot deny she feels very much the same. She drinks deeply of Emma’s lips, and loves her, and is glad to have Emma as her own. She tells her so.

“I must come live with you now,” Emma says, “being yours. I have my wits—I can leave Walter.”

“I would love that,” Arabella says. “Though I should warn you, Jonathan will be back eventually. He is not easy to live with. Though… he at least understands the ways of magic, as we do. And,” she adds, seeing the apprehension in Emma’s eyes, “he of course understands my love for you. He always has.”

Emma says, “I can put up with him, I think. But I must be yours. And you will be mine?”

Arabella kisses her. Such sweet lips. “Always yours,” she promises, “my fair love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel a bit bad for mentioning Jonathan in the midst of all this femslash but the Jonabella ship is strong enough that I feel one must explain what's going on there somehow before shipping either with someone else. So I basically think in this fic Jonathan knows Arabella's been pining for Emma for a long time and he gets it. When he gets back, it'll be a three-person household (well, them and the servants), and it'll generally be nice. As you do.  
> Anyways, this was written for the femslashficlets weekly challenge of "Embrace". Because TAM LIN Y'ALL. You just grab somebody and then they're yours. That's how it works in real life too.  
> jk, jk.  
> If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear from you in the comments! Or come chill with me on tumblr at convenientalias.tumblr.com


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